Chase Haltom’s three-pointer with one second left in Saturday’s 58-56 win by Wabash at Allegheny seemed to bring about the end of a hard-fought North Coast Athletic Conference men’s basketball game.
Instead, it set up one of the strangest of endings.
Haltom nailed a three-pointer with 18 seconds remaining in regulation to tie the game at 54-54. A foul called as Allegheny head coach Rob Clune requested a timeout awarded a free throw to the Gators’ Craig Devinney. The junior missed his only free throw of the afternoon on the attempt, giving the ball back to the Little Giants on a rebound by Rich Kavalauskas.
Little Giants got the ball to Haltom, who fired a three toward the basket. The shot dropped through the net with less than a second remaining to put Wabash in front 57-54.
That’s when the real fun began.
The Gators ran in inbound play that forced Wabash senior Brian Maloney into fouling Henry Heeter without any time coming off the clock. Heeter hit the first free throw to cut the Little Giants’ lead to two points, after which both teams sent in substitutes to prepare for the intentional missed free throw and rebound for a chance to tie the game. However, Heeter banked the free throw in and appeared to give the game to Wabash. As the teams began to prepare for an inbound pass, Wabash coach Mac Petty and the Little Giant players on the floor realized the Gators had shot the free throws with six players on the floor. After a momentary discussion by the officials, a technical foul was assessed on the Allegheny bench. Wes Smith hit one of two free throws before Wabash finally got a chance to inbound the ball and bring the game to end.
The curious finish came after a good start by the Little Giants in the first half. After falling behind by six points to start the contest, Wabash rallied with an 11-2 run to take a three-point lead. The Little Giants would take a six-point lead into halftime, only to see the Gators open with an 8-0 run to take a 34-31 lead. Smith, who led the Little Giants with 19 points, scored the first points of the half on a twisting shot through the lane to bring Wabash to within one point. The Gators pushed their lead to eight points with five minutes remaining the game before Wabash began its final push.
Smith started the comeback with another layup, followed by a layup by Andrew Gilman, who finished with a season-high 10 points. A Wabash stop led to a basket by Haltom for his first points of the game with 4:18 left in the contest, cutting the lead to two points. One minute later Gilman drilled a three to put Wabash in front 51-50.
A foul by Haltom sent Devinney to the free throw line with 24 seconds after neither team could score over the next few minutes. Devinney hit both charity tosses to put the Gators (6-5, 2-1 NCAC) up one, setting up the final few plays of the game.
The victory was the first in NCAC play for the Little Giants and improved their overall record to 6-5. Wabash returns to Chadwick Court Saturday afternoon for another conference contest against the College of Wooster.